


Baby Steps

by druscilla



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Pre-Hiatus (Fall Out Boy)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 20:09:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5178053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/druscilla/pseuds/druscilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not going to be a quick fix to undo where two weeks has left Pete since the tour ended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baby Steps

It had been almost two weeks since they got back from tour and only a few weeks until they started again. Patrick was knocking on Pete’s front door because the older boy still wasn’t answering his calls or texts and he was too scared to call the house phone and talk to Pete’s mom.

When the door opened, she was the one behind it. “Oh, thank God,” she said pulling Patrick into a one armed hug and helping him out of his winter coat. “He’s in his room. He hasn’t come out in a week.”  
Patrick’s eyes went as round as dinner plates and he didn’t remember to say anything before he ran up the stairs two at a time. He pushed open the door with the Green Day poster on the outside and was promptly greeted with Pete’s mess of a room and a lump of blankets on the bed he took to be the boy. “Pete?”

There was no answer but he could tell by the way the older boy didn’t shift at the noise that he wasn’t asleep. Patrick slipped his shoes off as he shut the door and walked to the bed. He slipped under the covers and wrapped one arm around the top of Pete’s chest, closer to restraining him than holding him. He knew what was coming next. “I know you’re not asleep,” he whispered.

“You know everything, don’t you?” Pete hissed darkly, trying to push back and knock Patrick off the bed, but the younger boy held fast, pushing him closer to the wall that bordered one edge of the twin mattress.

“I know _you_ ,” Patrick said, pressing his body closer to Pete’s and his lips to the boy’s ear. “Calm down. It’s okay.”

Pete gave one final effort, putting his hands on the wall to attempt to push Patrick back, but fingers closed over his and his reserve cracked. His hands slipped from the wall and he folded in on himself, tears welling at the corners of his eyes while Patrick’s arms wrapped tighter around him. “It hurts.” His voice cracked and he pulled the blanket up to cover his face.

Patrick held him tighter, kissing Pete’s shoulder blade through the shirt he’d probably been wearing all week before he spoke. “What hurts?”

“Moving. Talking to my mom. Getting dressed. Washing my hair. Eating. Breathing. Existing.” His voice grew more desperate with each declaration until on the final one he fell forward against the wall and starting crying in earnest.

Patrick continued to hold him, brushing the strings of greasy hair off his face so he could wipe at Pete’s tears and kiss just below his ears, down his neck. He waited until the tears began to slow and Pete had started to lay back in his arms. “When did you stop taking your meds?” he asked.

The older boy didn’t even bother to lie, just gave a heavy sigh. “On tour.”

Patrick started slightly. He had been watching Pete’s bottles on tour. They had been emptying right on schedule. “What did you do with all of it?” he asked in a low voice, picturing Pete alone in his room, dropping pills through his open fingers onto the mattress and laughing as he cried.

Pete’s voice was so small it could have been a child’s. “In a bag. In my underwear drawer.”

Patrick kissed his neck once before rolling out of the bed and walking to Pete’s dresser, tugging open the top drawer and rummaging around his boxers and socks before he found the Ziploc bag. It looked so full. “I’m taking this,” he said as he turned back to the bed.

The older boy was pushing himself into a sitting position against the headboard, wrapping his arms around his legs. “Okay,” he agreed in that same voice, staring at his blanket and tracing the pattern across his knees with his finger.

Patrick sighed and sat next to him on the bed, an arm coming up around his shoulder. “You should shower.”

Pete turned his head to catch the blue eyes with his. “Will you too?”

Patrick hesitated. “I don’t think your mom–”

“She doesn’t have to know,” Pete interrupted. “She’ll think you’re just talking to me or whatever.”

Patrick wasn’t so sure about that. He was pretty sure Pete’s mom knew entirely too much about what was going on between them. Hell, she seemed to know more about the entire situation than Patrick did. He shrugged. “Sure.” He had been showering with Pete on tour. It was the easiest way to guarantee the boy did, so Patrick had forsaken his fifteen minutes of privacy to make sure Pete’s hair was washed. They brushed their teeth together most days too.

It was weird to be getting undressed in the bathroom at Pete’s house rather than the anonymity of a hotel room you would never be in again. Patrick felt embarrassed for the first time in weeks, but Pete wasn’t even looking at him. Under the warm water, it all melted away. Patrick handed Pete the shampoo and watched him wash the week’s worry from his hair. Then Pete handed the bottle to Patrick, who washed his hair even though he already had the night before.

Pete used conditioner; Patrick didn’t. And then Pete was kissing Patrick hard, while the water fell down their faces and they had to keep their eyes closed and both choked on water when they came up for air. Pete laughed and Patrick thought it was the prettiest sound he’d ever heard in his life.

One more kiss and then Patrick turned the water off, handed Pete a towel from the cupboard and took one for himself. He stopped the older boy when he reached for his jeans. “You need clean clothes.”

Pete didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed walking down his hallway holding a towel at his waist and leaving wet footprints behind him, but it was all Patrick could do not to melt into the floor when Pete’s mom came out of her room and saw them going into his. Patrick’s hair was visibly wet and dripping onto the neck of his shirt under his hat. She didn’t say a word.

Pete picked out clean jeans and a tee shirt and went to crawl back into his bed, but the younger boy stopped him again. “We could go down to the basement and watch a movie.”

The older boy looked at him for a moment, silent and a little scared. He worried his bottom lip between his teeth as his eyes darted back toward the mattress for a second. He felt the younger boy take his hand and his fingers twitched. “Okay,” he whispered. “One movie.”


End file.
